


Things Aren't Always What They Seem...

by sf_fan_mae



Category: Airwolf
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 19:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sf_fan_mae/pseuds/sf_fan_mae
Summary: Michael, String and Dom have a plan to get St. John back.





	Things Aren't Always What They Seem...

**Author's Note:**

> Note 1: Originally published in 1989 in the fanzine HEAT #4, from Pandora Publications
> 
> Note 2: Airwolf was canceled by CBS after 3 seasons, but then picked up by the USA network for, sort of, a forth. They could still use stock footage of the exterior of the Airwolf helicopter, but the set for the interior, and for “the Lair” where the helicopter was kept, looked nothing like the first two seasons. The first episode conveniently “killed off” the two main characters and just had the rest vanish off screen to bring in presumably cheaper replacements. The plot made no sense, St. John was suddenly String’s younger brother and the secret government agency went from being “the Firm” to “the Company”. I don’t know what other fans did to make sense of the mess, there was no internet to discuss it on back then, but I wrote this story.
> 
> Note 3: Added 12/3/2019. Sometime after this was published, a writer named Christel Chancy posted a story named "Twist of Fate" to one of the Sentinel fanfic sites that is a crossover between the Airwolf universe as I extended it in this story and The Sentinel. The story may still be on-line somewhere but my searches haven't turned it up. I only have a printed out copy.

“Do you really think they’ll fall for it, Michael?”

Dominic and Archangel were sitting by the fireplace in Hawke’s cabin.

“They’ve been pretty gullible so far. Imagine… me… meekly accepting a transfer to the Far East? And turning Airwolf over to _them_? They didn’t even _try_ to follow the false trail we laid for Caitlin’s ‘quitting’ Santini Air,” Michael replied.

“Or investigating the explosion that ‘killed’ me. Considering all the missions String and I have flown for you, I’d have thought they’d be worried about ‘foul play’, but they didn’t even pursue it. I just hope I don’t have to play dead much longer. I’m sure _some_ people must have been upset by my hastily arranged funeral.”

“It won’t be much longer now; they should be going in after St. John today.”

“But surely they’ll realize that helicopter _isn’t_ Airwolf.”

“Why should they? None of them have seen it up close before and they don’t know Cait could fly it to pull off the switch. Besides, it is _an_ Airwolf, or at least as close as we could copy it on rather short notice. It’s too bad you’re losing such a good hiding place though. We fixed it up to match the Company’s expectations, threw in some computers and support equipment for good measure, made it look like a real base, even ran in a phone line. We’re just lucky that Jo was doing a favor for a friend piloting that particular executive shuttle for the Company… and understood what she overheard.”

“I certainly never suspected _my_ niece was in the spy business, working for yet another of your rival organizations. I thought she was doing corporate research after she got her engineering degree. You’d never guess you people all worked on the same side – the Company, the Firm, the Agency, the Department, all working at cross purposes and trying to trip each other up.”

“The Company was way ahead of us on this one,” Michael admitted, “knowing where St. John was all along.” I’ll enjoy taking them down a peg. You had the hard part, convincing String not to tear them apart after he’d heard Jo’s story. Though I certainly wanted to join him when I found out they’d had the information _I_ needed to get Airwolf back all along.”

Dom stood up and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll start some breakfast… Are you awake up there, Cait?”

Up in the loft, Caitlin had heard the men talking. “I’ll be down in a minute,” she called, sitting up and shooing Tet off the end of the bed. He promptly curled up on the rug where she had intended to put her feet and stared up at her mournfully. “I know, Tet. I miss him too, but he’ll be back soon now,” she whispered, reaching over to scratch the dog’s head.

* * *

The rescue had been pulled off with no major problems. The hardest part for Jo was finding a moment alone with St. John before one of the others told him Dom was dead and String was dying. Fortunately, Jason and Mike seemed to understand that she would want to ‘break the news’ to him privately and gave them a few minutes alone before heading home.

“Jo… what are you doing here? Where’s String? And who are those guys? Buchard was sure String would come after me.”

“If we’re out of earshot I’ll explain,” Jo began, looking back to where Jason and Mike were checking out the camp for survivors. “We had to trick the Company into rescuing you and those two aren’t in on it. They think Dom was killed in a helicopter explosion and String was seriously injured. We’re supposed to rush you to the hospital, so you’ll just have to go along with the ruse until String can explain the rest of it to you. Here comes Jason, look upset.”

* * *

St. John turned back to the door of the hospital room. Seeing no one there, he checked the hall. “I don’t see any Company goons; you can stop faking it, little brother.”

St. John and String slipped out of the hospital to the trees where ‘Airwolf’ was hidden. Looking over the helicopter, String was impressed. “Archangel’s technicians did a great job – from the outside I can hardly tell the difference.” He opened the door and looked in. “Now here’s where they skimped, looks pretty different inside. Does anything work?”

“It got me out of Burma, I’m satisfied. She’s a pleasure to fly.”

They climbed in and took off, heading for the mountains and String’s cabin.

* * *

There was barely room for one more helicopter to land in the clearing. Airwolf and Archangel’s white helicopter were hidden beneath camouflage nets in case the Company had decided to come calling. St. John landed in the remaining space.

“It’s not usually so crowded, I came up here to get away from people,” String commented.

Dom was the first one out of the cabin, breaking into a run when he saw St. John. Caitlin and Michael followed more slowly, giving them a private moment for a long-awaited reunion. After introductions all around, they went inside.

“Jo and String described your plot,” St. John began, turning to Archangel. “I wanted to thank you. All that time I was working for the Company, I never knew they hadn’t contacted String. I wrote right after they got me out of ‘Nam, that I couldn’t come see him or even tell where I was going or who I was working for, but I was all right and he shouldn’t worry. I’m not sure that I can forgive them that deception.”

“It was to their advantage to keep you ‘dead’.”

“How much do we tell Locke and Rivers now?” St. John asked.

“As little as possible. The Company has to believe they really have Airwolf. That gets them, _and_ the Committee, off my back, and we can return to business as usual,” Michael answered.

“Almost, since we won’t be hiding the Lady from you anymore. You came through with your part of the deal.”

“And in return you’ve put Airwolf back under my control… but I hope you’ll still fly her for me, Hawke. One thing hasn’t changed: the Committee won’t let the Firm use Airwolf openly.”

“Then what do you think the Company will do with theirs?”

“I’m not sure. I studied Jason Locke’s record when planning this. I steered the job his way because I suspect he has more integrity than most of the Company. He may handle it the way I did and keep it out of the Committee’s control.”

* * *

“We keep Airwolf our secret but we work for the Company. What do you say?”

St. John had returned to the Lair alone, to meet Jo, Mike and Jason, arriving in time to hear Locke reach just the conclusion Archangel had predicted. As they walked together around the helicopter, Jason continued speaking.

“And what about you, Jo? Will you come work with us, or are you going to keep your uncle’s business?”

“I think a transfer to the Company can be arranged, after one last solo mission I’m committed to, along with a cover job at Santini Air. You can probably all fill in there if you want,” Jo replied, grinning.

“What do you mean… a transfer?”

“Sorry to have to deceive you guys, but I’ve been an operative in one of your rival agencies for some time. When I overheard that the Company knew what had happened to St. John, I took some vacation and came out to California to tell String about it. I had no idea then that he and Uncle Dom had connections with the Firm. The plot to trick the Company was mostly Archangel’s though: he’s even replacing the chopper we blew up. Things almost backfired when you caught me practicing in Airwolf, you weren’t supposed to locate it quite so fast. You didn’t really believe I just happened across it and then flew it out of the lair without any practice, did you? Caitlin was going over a few last points with me. I had to drop her off before I came back here, when you had spotted me. That’s how you got here first.”

“You’ve lost me,” Mike interrupted. “You mean this was all a set-up by the Firm? Even the explosion?”

“Santini Air works on movie stunts, remember? That was all for the benefit of the Company’s ‘observers’. We wanted to force the Company to get St. John. The plan was already in the works when String started getting information about where he was. We could have gone in ourselves with that but the plot was already too far along. Uncle Dom’s been up at String’s cabin since his ‘death’. The doctors were in on it too, to make you think String was seriously injured and force your hand to get St. John out.”

Jason turned to St. John. “How long have you known about this?”

“Only since Jo told me before we left for the hospital.”

“So your brother was willing to give up Airwolf to force the Company to rescue you?”

“Of course, that was always the bargain."

“Not quite. The bargain was that _the Firm_ got Airwolf back.”

“I guess Archangel got tired of other agencies trying to steal it, and of fighting the Committee over it. That’s all your headache now, Jason.”

“But why go to all the trouble?” Jason asked.

“Why was the government never honest about where I was, even to their own people?” St. John returned. “The Committee certainly never trusted String to give Airwolf back – they aren’t capable of recognizing honesty and integrity – but they’d believe you could take it, especially if Dom and String weren’t there to protect it.”

Mike summed up all their thoughts. “Well, now we’ve got it, what are we going to do with it?”

 

 


End file.
